If you are traveling to Portugal, Lisbon specifically, you have probably heard about Sintra and the Pena Palace. These are on every website about Lisbon. Sintra is a cute, charming and hilly little town about 45 minutes West of Lisbon. You can take a guided tour here, ride the metro trains (the cheapest option) or take an Uber for about 35 minutes into town. We opted to take the 50 min train ride and it cost $12 euros for both of us round trip. The ride there was comfortable and quiet and let us rest our legs before a long day of walking up and down hills and through expansive gardens.
I recommend looking up which palaces you would like to visit because there are many. Some like the brightly colored Pena Palace are very popular and extremely busy, and not to mention require a long uphill walk or advance planning. There is the city of Sintra’s website where you can buy advance tickets for the more popular palaces.
We chose to visit Quinta de Regaleira for the expansive, intricate gardens and the popular spiral wishing well. It is about a 25 minute walk from the center of town to Quinta de Regaleira. So we stopped for breakfast pasteries and coffee at the well known and delicious Casa Piriquita. I recommend getting into Sintra and this cafe as early as you can. We arrived about 0900, a half an hour after they opened and there was already a line outside. The line moves fairly quickly for the takeout counter. They do also have tables if you would like a more leisurely visit.
We tried several pastries, the queijada tart, a travesseiro puff pastry filled with egg custard and a lemon bar thing that I forgot the name of. All were delicious and just enough to hold us over until lunch.
After spending about an hour in the gardens you wind your way down to the actual palace and admire the beautiful architecture. It will make you fantasize about being a wealthy person in this time period for sure!
Quinta de Regaleira is a gorgeous palace surrounded by stunning gardens with winding paths and hidden gems with benches and views of town. There are caves and ponds and a large wishing well with spiral staircase that makes for some cool photo ops.
After we spent about 2 hours here we decided to walk back towards town and grab a bite to eat. Our next palace was a bit farther away and will require an Uber ride to get to.
Cafe Saudade was a cute little shop that sells delicious sandwiches and pasteries as well as the best latte I’ve had in my life (it’s the one sweetened with condensed milk). We both ordered sandwiches were came out on buttery toasted bread and were rather large. I could only finish half of mine and they graciously wrapped up the other half to go.
The next and last palace we visited was Monserrate. This is less visited, likely because of how far from the center of town it’s located. So we ordered an Uber to drive us the 20 minutes up windy, hilly, and narrow roads.
This palace like Quinta de Regaleira has expansive gardens.
They are less manicured though and a bit more wild. The former owner of Monserrate liked to collect all things exotic, including cacti, roses, ferns and tropical plants.
The pathway winds you through each area of the garden past ponds and giant cacti.
The palace was under renovation on the outside when we visited so I didn’t take many pictures outside, but the inside is incredible!
Intricate details are everywhere and there are lots of signs explaining the art and such in Portuguese and English.
I think if I come back to Portugal, I would like to spend a couple of nights in Sintra and have more time to explore more palaces and gardens. I recommend not trying to do more that 2-3 spots in a day. We only visited 2 and probably walked over 20,000 steps that day!
What a cool little town/village. I highly recommend visiting while you are in Lisbon.
If you are staying in the Lisbon area, I would even recommend spending the night in Sintra, giving you more time to explore and visit more palaces than you could see on a day trip. If I go back to Lisbon, I will 100% stay in Sintra for a couple of days.
Nearby to Sintra is the coastal town of Cascais which we didn’t visit, but there are day trip tours that will take you to Sintra and this cute beach town on a full day tour. Check out sites like Get Your Guide and Viator.
To check out more on Portugal and the beautiful island of Madeira check out my blog page. You can read about the tasty food in Lisbon, or sights not to miss. Madeira has some incredible outdoorsy things to see and do.
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